One of Microsoft’s unfortunate mobile strategy failures was MSN Direct and SPOT (Smart Personal Objects Technology). I say “unfortunate” because I have two Suunto SPOT watches and an annual paid subscription for MSN Direct Plus that gave me the ability to sync my Outlook calendar over the air with the watch.

…does not install at all in Microsoft Vista. And, I just found that it fails at the end of its installation process in Microsoft Virtual PC (beta) Windows XP Mode (a virtual machine under Windows 7). You can see the failure message in the screenshot above.

And, since the MSN Direct project has been dormant for a couple of years now, there’s no chance of a plugin update. To make matters more annoying, Microsoft doesn’t even provide contact information on…

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2009 08 02

I still use my Suuntto n3i Spot watch everyday and subscribe to the service that lets me sync with Outlook’s calendar. According to Engadget the data service will continue on for my watch. I sure hope so since Microsoft just auto-renewed the service and charged my credit card a few weeks ago.

It’s too bad Microsoft wasn’t able to make a go of the Spot watches. It might have done better if it could sync directly with a Windows Mobile device in addition to Outlook. And, if it grown to include Bluetooth to provide incoming Caller ID information, it might have been a better value for WiMo smartphone users.